Well, here it is... my personal favorite part of my story of how I got into anime-- discussing what actually got me into anime and go further into the depths of its many, many genres and cultural differences. But before we go into all that, I want to briefly discuss a few anime that almost did the job in the early 1990s, starting with my first full viewing of the movie I was denied watching 4 years earlier in 1989-- Akira.
My story with Akira was quite an interesting one. After watching such movies like Galaxy Express 999, Clash of the Bionoids, and even Space Warrior Baldios, my dad figured, Akira might be safe to watch. Boy, was he wrong. The movie was far more mature than even I anticipated, and my furious mother immediately objected to watching it any further after Takashi witnessed a rebel being shot down by the SWAT team. But for the little I watched, the level of attention to detail with every frame of animation is unprecedented. I got to watch it in full during the summer of 1993 because my old man felt like spoiling me with a few ultraviolent anime while my mother wasn't around.
During the summer of 1994, I had earned my yearly magazine subscriptions of my choice, and among the three I was allowed, I subscribed to Animerica, respectively, as the name just popped up when I was at a comic book store browsing. With this, I would learn a little about some more up-to-date anime (some even more outrageous than most) and this would also be where I would first hear about the Street Fighter 2 anime movie. At the time, the movie looked absolutely awesome going by the screenshots, but it wouldn't be until another 2 years when I would get a chance to actually see it. Incidentally, SNK had its own flagship fighting game movie "Fatal Fury" coming out on the same year, and I was thinking to myself, "Wow, and I thought Lion King was hype. Japan's having a party."
I'd also hear about some anime I didn't think would have a significant impact on me a year later, but I won't go into that right now. Right now I wanna talk about my first experience with an actual uncut, unedited anime in its purest form I recently watched dubbed. That anime was Dagger of Kamui. Once dubbed "Revenge of the Ninja Warrior" by the now-defunct Australian home video distribution company Celebrity (who also brought "Clash of the Bionoids"), this uncut version really, really opened my eyes to Japanese cultural references that weren't immediately aware to me in the butchered dub. Also, the anime was surprisingly VERY long... well over 2 hours as opposed to 90 minutes. A lot of graphic death scenes were missing, and there was one particularly good fight scene that was deleted during the scene where Jiro was aided by Chiomapp and her caretaker during the winter. My guess as to why it was deleted was because it was deemed too scary for children, which it probably was. Additionally, I also got to rent a random anime called Vampire Princess Miyu, which would mark the first anime babe I actually had a crush on. For the first time ever, my eyes were opening to the truth about anime... that in actuality, they were more than just cartoons. They were sophisticated works of art with potentially mature storytelling that would rival even the prime-time shows shown at the time. And someday - I wouldn't know how - I was gonna learn more.
So after gaming became pretty much 95% of my life outside of school and other important stuff, the summer of 1995 was almost here. It was the end of the month of May. Turns out nothing new was gonna be on Saturday mornings or on weekdays for either CBS or FOX, and at the time, we had no cable television. Visiting the arcades wasn't always an opportunity, and I was almost burned out from the console games I did play. So I took a chance and saw what was on syndication one day around 2:00 PM EST. It looked like a new cartoon was making its way on the air... but what's this? It looks like... anime style. It was called Ronin Warriors. The intro had a pretty straightforward synopsis and featured 5 dudes in armored suits. My first thought was another Power Rangers rip-off, but after actually watching the episode, I came to realize it shared none of its quirky campiness. Apparently, I was on the third episode, and the main villain - Talpa (Arago) -had blasted them away to desolate locations in Japan. Even more surprising, there was a chick named Mia Koji (who would normally be billed as the damsel in distress) that was determined to find them alongside this kid named Ulie, and I'm thinking, WTF? I've never seen this happen before where the ordinary chick does the rescuing... I gotta see where this goes.
So Mia and Ulie head for "the great volcano" (which in actuality, is Mount Fuji) to free the leader of the Ronin Warriors. No, seriously, they actually went and climbed Mount Fuji to find him. Meanwhile, the first of the Dark Warlords, Anubis (actually called Shutendouji) was lying in wait, looking for a chance to kill Ryo before he recovers. Little did he know that the place Ryo was catapulted to was the very place his power is the strongest. After getting Mia and Ulie to safety, Ryo proceeded to beat the crap out of Anubis after being held back because of them. After watching this, I thought, OK, this show might be good. There's no annoying monsters they have to fight, and Japan's population has been practically subjugated by the bad guys, so there's a bit of tension and a dark feel to this show as opposed to Power Rangers. And on top of that, the show was not episodic like most Saturday morning cartoons, so I had to stay tuned to every episode to find out what happens next.
And with that, Ronin Warriors became my crack for the summer of 1995, with each episode being more exciting to watch than the last. It was something simple and easy to get into, but still had that unique flavor I just wasn't getting in even some of the best SatAM and weekday shows I've watched in recent memory. And wouldn't you know it, I read in an Animerica issue about several anime taking TV by storm in 1995, and wouldn't you know it, Ronin Warriors was featured. So I wasn't watching just another show. I was watching something that would forever have an impact on my affinity for anime. This anime became so important for me to watch that I made it top priority that no matter what chores I did or whatever I was doing outside with friends, my ass was in the house and on WATL 36 every weekday at 2PM sharp... and if I missed an episode, nothing else after that mattered. An X-Men rerun? Meh. Batman's putting a stop to Harley and Ivy? Yeah, fascinating. It felt so empty going through the rest of my TV schedule without watching Ronin Warriors. I was thoroughly, completely addicted to this show, in spite of its flaws. But the point is, this is the show that did it for me. From the ordeal of rescuing the five heroes from real-life locations in Japan, to the badassery of Anubis (Shutendouji), to the fact they didn't rely on a Monster-of-the-Day gimmick like so many other sentai shows, to the awesomeness that was the Inferno (Kikoutei) armor, to the mystery behind the kick-ass villainess Kayura... there was always a reason to keep watching, and I thank syndication for this.
Not too long after Ronin Warriors ended its first run, I would then spot another commercial that at first glance seemed very similar to Ronin Warriors... except this time it involved girls. My initial thought was that DiC caught on to Ronin Warriors hella quick, but it was only coincidential. Anyway, this anime was Sailor Moon, and I'll admit I wasn't too big on the show at first glance and blew it off. It wasn't until a month later that I would find out my sister was geeking out over it like it was the second coming of Thundercats. So I thought, okay... if she actually likes this Ronin Warriors ripoff with girls in it, I should at least watch a few episodes. So sometime during the fall, the show started airing, and I had just enough time to watch it before school started... wasn't too impressed. The titular character had to be the biggest crybaby I've ever seen - even putting Baby Mario to shame - and the supporting character was a guy in a tuxedo with a rose for a weapon... seriously dude? A rose? You would think the Ronin Warriors would play a guest role in the show to spice things up here, but then I realized this isn't like He-Man / She-Ra. Different companies, different universes. So why did I endure watching it? What was the show delivering that I could take seriously?
Sailor Moon - albeit vaguely - had its modern Japanese cultural references out there in spades, though not very apparent because of the nature of the dub. It had school uniforms in even public schools, traditional bento, cram schools, Shinto temples, and many more things to give it a sense of realism just like Ronin Warriors did. On top of that, the lead female characters didn't look half bad in miniskirts. Sure, it had the Monster-of-the-Day gimmick, and yes, their powers don't quite pack as much of a punch than the uber-powerful ones seen in Ronin Warriors, but maybe because of the nature of the story, it's better for that. Besides, a good show doesn't always need a shitload of awesome action scenes. Sometimes it just needs drama worthy of a soap opera, and later on, the show would deliver in that department.
Shortly after Jadeite is put into cryostasis by Queen Beryl, Nephrite takes his place and focuses on gathering energy from one person instead of groups. As his story arc progresses, a gradual chemistry between him and Sailor Moon's best friend Molly (Naru) would occur, eventually leading to a dangerous situation where Nephrite targets Molly and assumes she carries the Silver Crystal the villains have been looking for. However, the plan backfires, as Zoicite was plotting to kill Nephrite and take the credit. Nephrite catches on when he finds out he kidnapped Molly, and Nephrite rescues her, revealing his true identity to her and discussing chocolate parfait as Molly dressed his wounds. Zoicite takes them by surprise and mortally wounds Nephrite, and from that point on, I took the show seriously. The villains were just as three-dimensional as the heroes, much like in Ronin Warriors, and they pulled no punches about the harsh reality of death. Ever since then, I gave the show respect. Even though the dub by DiC was far from the show in its purest form, it was enough for me to remain interested (and even become a fan myself) at the time.
During the summer of 1996 - due to my parents separating - I moved to Florida. Around this time, I managed to catch syndicated reruns of Samurai Pizza Cats, the original Dragon Ball, and Teknoman (Tekkaman Blade). Ronin Warriors would stop airing on syndication and move to the Sci-Fi Channel. Although I was happy it aired again, something was amiss about the episodes. They were actually cut compared to its original broadcast I had on tape, and with unnecessary cuts at that... and I'm like, "What's the point?" But anyway, it was Ronin Warriors, that show was my shit, I was gonna watch it anyway to kill time before I took the bus to school. On top of that, I also was treated to an anime movie every Saturday morning on the Sci-Fi channel now that we had cable, which further expanded on my desire to binge on as much anime as possible. Of the movies my fam actually watched with me, we saw the new and improved English dub of Galaxy Express 999, Project A-Ko, Robot Carnival, Green Legend Ran, and Dominion Tank Police. For Galaxy Express 999 in particular, we actually had a few tubs of popcorn because we had such fond memories watching the old crappy dub back in the day. Project A-Ko surprisingly became a favorite of my mother's, as she wasn't expecting it to be making fun of other anime in the past.
Throughout the rest of 1996, my weeks would consist of Saturday mornings on the Sci-Fi channel and eventually weekdays on USA (after finding out Sailor Moon was being canned on syndication and moving to USA for a short time). I was also hearing that Fox's Saturday morning shows were not doing so hot (especially Season 5 of X-Men), so it was of no consequence to skip it. But this craving for more anime was far from over, as something big was gonna change the anime industry stateside forever, and cause a bigger boom and awareness than 1995 ever did. And it would all begin with a bold move by Cartoon Network at a gradual pace, with companies such as ADV, Funimation, Pioneer, and Bandai taking a splash with a new media format... this will all be discussed in Part 4 of my anime retrospective.
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